YouTube changes logo for the first time since 2005

YouTube now has an all-new design, and a new logo to compliment it. Matter of fact, it’s the company’s first logo change in 12 years.

The red blob that covered the second half of YouTube has been removed. Instead, the red play button that has served as the app icon and identifier in a series of ads now lives to the left of the wordmark. The red color is much brighter now as well.

It’s really familiar, but we’re going to miss the quirkiness of the previous logo design. The wordmark feels like it looks a tad bit bland without the red blob around it. Still, YouTube says that the change was inspired by the variety of devices we now have; the new logo is more adaptable for all those screen sizes. From its announcement post:

The bright red cherry on top of this update sundae is a refreshed YouTube Logo and YouTube Icon. Designed for our multi-screen world, the updated Logo combines a cleaned up version of the YouTube wordmark and Icon, creating a more flexible design that works better across a variety of devices, even on the tiniest screens. Why’s it more flexible? When the room is limited (say on a smartphone) you can use the brightened up Icon as an abbreviated Logo, which will be seen more easily and read more clearly.Youtube Blog

The logo aside, we’ve seen most of the new look already. YouTube has been testing the whole new design for months now, opening it up for anyone to try way back in May of 2017. It’s noticeably cleaner, more in lieu of material design and its generous use of whitespace. There’s now a dark mode for all those who prefer to watch videos without having to endure eye-searing white surroundings.

Youtube across time…

There are a few handy features wrapped-up in the update as well. You can now finally adjust video playback speed on mobile devices, and the app will soon be able to dynamically change shape according to the video’s aspect ratio – something that was first demo-ed in June 2017. But the most exciting feature is that the dark mode is also coming to smartphones too!

The new logo has now rolled out on the web, smartphones and all other apps as well.